Emak Bakia - Despué
(Acuarela)
Why do we keep listening as the same chords are thrashed to infinity,
imitation overtakes inspiration, and cliché becomes music's standard tongue?
We listen to be rewarded with the occasional Emak Bakia. Do Después' grooves
bear the seeds of a revoluion? No, hardly. But there is definitely something
special here. Synths couch a curious spatter of samples and defective
rhythms; wintery strings supply the emotion drained from shards of slurred
and murmured poetry. Beneath it all, a troubled heart fights to keep barely
beating. For all the fragmentation and electronic intervention, this might
well be Kid A's little brother. But there's not a jot of cynicism or
contrivance here, just a sincerely affecting air of loneliness. Moreover,
there's a story here--a bittersweet tale of music lost and found. Weathered
melodies suggest that the characters who once inhabited these songs have
long since abandoned them, leaving cast-aside choruses and verses to molder
in disrepair. Once a proud anthem--perhaps a call to courtship or civil
duty--"Cancion Rumana #2" now cries out for compassion, begging the company
of an attentive ear with the last glimmers of its waning glamours. One hears
the ghosts of history and heartbreak in the blasted remnants of "Ils Sont
Américaines?," the deathless patter of drum machines and the defiant
afterlife echoes of song. "Después" contains moments of incredible pathos.
Birds affectionately accompany the dying strains of a fairground organ air
"Después (Amancer)"; "Hannari" fades away, a folk song forever lost,
unnoticed amidst the human commotion of a French marketplace. How can you
not be moved? The tracks with vocals offer hope, as though melodies once
forsaken and forgotten have been salvaged--tenderly embraced by musicians
entranced by their timeworn charms. "Open Wide Road" and "A Sign for the
Traveller" seem to be antique fragments of song given new life as settings
for the precious thoughts of poets and minstrels.
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